Digital Daze2.0 ICT Cluster - Attendant's Feedback 2011

Back to Learning at School

Arthur Miller

Teacher	Something from Rotorua that had an impact on you.	What have you done in your school as a result of this impact?
Terry Maloney	Using the IWB to record and document student learning and understanding. Posterous as a simple blogging tool Spike at School	We have purchased pedestal microphones for 4 classrooms and we are using these to record and embed student ideas within flipcharts. The intention is to eventually integrate these files into ePortfolios as direct evidence of student learning. I have posted an example of student questions using the IWB sound recorder on my class blog. Several teachers in the school have created Posterous blogs and we are trialling this, before deciding whether to migrate to this provider in Term 2. Posterous lets users make blog posts by emailing their content to the site and it takes care of layout. This seems to be a much easier system, particularly for teachers who may struggle with traditional blogging. Posterous Teachers who attended the conference are starting Spike at School ePortfolios as personal reflection diaries of their ICT learning this year. This is a way for our school to evaluate the Spike at School platform.
Sandy Anderson	Scott McLeod's keynote about "change or die" in relation to educating for the future and how good we are educating for the past. Principals and administrators must be leading he said.... The Spike at School portfolio workshop	As principal, I support staff to grow with ICT development and provide the funding within budget constraints to allow this to happen. I have begun to post weekly comments on teachers' blogs, make weekly posts to my own blog and set myself a challenge of learning and embedding a a new tool into my learning repertoire. Monday evenings seem a good time to do this. So far I have set up Google Reader to keep me up to date with TED Talks and other educationally relevant video clips. Adding video clips to my blog using Vodpod has been successful new learning in the past fortnight since conference. I have set up a Spike at School e portfolio which the AMS Learning at School team is also doing as a trial to determine if it is suitable for all staff to use as a way of tracking their own learning journey in ICT.
Cathy Middleton	Inspire Me and ActivStudents IWB sessions Web literacy session- posterous blog & writing fun. Spike at school- eportfolio	I am using my IWB with more confidence. My class and I are loving using voice recording on the active board in inquiry and putting our comments, thinkings and predictions behind our names, so that we can click on the name and hear the comment. I have set up a second blog using posterous, it is soooo easy. Using writing fun in the classroom has been a great asset to teaching genre writing using my IWB. I have set up an eportfolio using spike where I am reflecting on my ICT learning and journey in my classroom. Trialing the whole eportfolio concept.

Eskdale

Teacher	Something from Rotorua that had an impact on you.	What have you done in your school as a result of this impact?
Angela Ransom	Expressive drawing with Illustrator CS5 for creative art projects/Digital painting with photoshop CS5 10 Steps to introducing eportfolios Brett Lee - Embracing a Cyber world: The necessity of embracing the online world for our youth is balanced against the risks, responsibilities and dangers that are inherent through the nature of the internet. Appreciating the benefits and limitations of our online world.	This is an excellent drawing programme but very expensive!! We hav begun using ArtRage as it free and has similar features to CS5. Looking at going through this powerpoint with staff to give them a better understanding of e-portfolios Sharing Brett Lees story with year 7/8 on appropriate use of internet eg facebooks - dangers and pitfalls, cybersafety and NETSafe with whole school years 0-8 (home/school). www.cyberkids.co.nz
Ann Craig	How can you effectively communicate with your school community - re: learning (Mary Anne Mills) Implementing the NZ Curriculum (Waikowhai School). Their model of school wide planning and assessment linking inquiry model of SOLO taxonomy to NZ Curriculum	looking at adapting school website to better communicate with parents about student learning. Making sure our approach to teaching and learning is clearly articulated on our school website. Engaging our parents/whananu. Consultation etc. As teacher in charge of leading school curriculum development this workshop was very useful. It was good to experiencs another schools journey using inquiry/SOLO models with regards to curriculum/whole school planning.
Bryony Lovatt	Assessment and Reporting Dispositions and Key Competencies: Students are digital natives but are they critical thinkers? Assessment for Learning	As lead teacher for Assessment this session has enabled me to source some excellent websites to support teaching Key Competencies. This sessions has also encouraged me to questuion how I use/let the kids use the internet to source information. This was an excellent session which raises some great questions about 'the fundamental of assessment: What is assessment, Why do we assess and what is the purpose behind assessment.

Greenmeadows

Teacher	Something from Rotorua that had an impact on you.	What have you done in your school as a result of this impact?
Jonette Dale	Karen Boyce- Brain based learning- How the brain works, is stimulated, stores memory, and develops Literacy in the classroom Microsoft 2010	Using music in the classroom to hook children into the right mood for switching on to learning. Drink water, eat brain foods and have brain rests. By understanding how the brain works effectively to store, retrieve and sift information effects how I teach. Awareness of visual and auditory pathways to brain development change the way I run my daily routines. Many useful tools to help support the literacy in the classroom. Using the IWB to promote group shared writing, planning, mindmapping. Using pictures to stimulate questioning (IWB) Writing all over the Pictures, vocabulary development. Many great ways to use web2 tools for literacy. New tricks in microsoft. Using Powerpoint as a class interactive base. Children reading and developing a range of comprehension questions for the class to answer. Also building a profect up in Powerpoint and then class sharing and discussion using shared one note. Just beginning to experiment with this cool new tool. Also some new add-ins for photo collage, and music making.
Ally Ross	Active Inspire introduction to using IWB LIteracy in the classroom	Some quick tips to make use of IWB easier. Tried several ideas. Class rolls. Dual use of pens. Inserting sound. Used Active expressions - very keen to get a set in the school - see huge possibilities. Lots of different web sites to look at to aid combining literacy and ICT in classroom. Have used the new poem site several times. Children love it and it makes it easy an the children have success and publish quickly.
Lyndsey Starkey
Sue Martin	I Can Animate ICT for Inquiry Digital Painting with Photoshop CS5 for Creative Arts Projects	I loved this programme as it appears to have lots of potential to ehance literacy learning. A very simle way especially for and by younger chn to use to develop digital stories sequences etc. The stop frame animation programme can also be transferred to iMovie and can add sound and effects. Our school has purchased a block of licenses through Innes Kennedy in Masterton. I am in the process of using the programme with a small group of chn.It is fun. Discussion on ways ICT supports Inquiry learning and its advantages. It was good to hear of the many useful web sites and sources to help chn with their learning, and a variety of ways for them to share and communicate their findings. I have accessed a few todate (mind mapping, yahoo kids,wordle,) and uses them in the classroom. Want to explore 'voicethread' later-maybe practise over the April break. An interesting programme but more suitable for older chn where they can paint directly onto the original image & create a piece of their own art work. Chn create painting-like effects with ordinary images by using a mixer & bristle brush in the photoshop programme. An expensive programme to purchase. Recommend for Yr 6-8 chn. I enjoyed producing my own master piece!

Meeanee

Teacher	Something from Rotorua that had an impact on you.	What have you done in your school as a result of this impact?
Gill Scarlett	Scott McLeod's comments on the Commodity Burger versus the Gourmet Burger David Anderson - Teamwork."We are educating the adults our students will need to become." "The true measure of a team is that it accomplishes the results that it sets out to achieve. To do that on a consistent basis, a team must overcome the five dysfunctions" Pam Hook - Assessment for Learning. Perspectives on technology and education: Everything done online is tracked and traded. Children want a response from interest peers not age peers. High ability readers have high levels of media literacy. Those with limited ability used media as a crutch and learning online was minimal.Multi literacies advantage the most advantaged and social media is increasing the inequality. 4. Student use of the IWB	During my teaching sessions encouraging children to add value to what they produce. To think ahead and strategise in order to work smarter. Working together as highly functional units is what our students need to develop the skills for. In order to do this with our students we need to develop these skills ourselves. I have introduced the 5 dysfunctions to staff and dicussed the characteristics of each one. How to use the model as a staff or as a class was explained and each staff member has a copy of the model. Next step to provide greater use of research strategies by most literate students. Using alternatives to media for literacy development of less able readers. Reinforced the need for us to continue to use practical life examples to base student learning on. www.hooked-on-thinking.com Have increased use of IWB by students rather than me. Actively seeking and creating flipcharts for students to use independently. Have increased the use of the dual pen option in learning tasks.
Kelly	Inspireme Media and Students use of the IWB - Great ideas were shown on what can be done with an IWB. Brett Lee - Keynote speaker. I liked the way he spoke about the internet being a valuable tool and how important it is to teach children how to use it safely rather than condemn them. Using the digital camera - Comforting to know that a simple everyday tool can be used much more effectively. Befunky.com and comic life are two fantastic sites we need to utilise more.	We are using the dual pen more often, especially in numeracy and literacy. I am using promethean planet regularly and I am creating flipcharts for students engagement. The use of microphones is important to capture student voice. We are looking at options now and will be purchasing some. Have spoken to my class about safety on the internet. Was surprised how many children use chatrooms. I asked them do they know who they are talking to and how. We also discussed how photos are out for anybody to use and dodgy people are out there doing just that. Was so inspired that our next inquiry is going to be 'the power of a photograph' and we will be doing a variety of tasks using the camera.

Porritt

Teacher	Something from Rotorua that had an impact on you.	What have you done in your school as a result of this impact?
Tony Parker	Multi users on an IWB. This was using Mobis but some of the ideas could be used with just the dual pen mode. Jill Hammond's workshop on using ICT tools for Raising Literacy Achievement http://www.zooburst.com/ - Makes popup books. Can insert own photos and create a pop up book Writing with Success: SOLO taxonomy-rubrics to enhance writing outcomes. [[http://www.buildyourwildself.com-creates/\|http://www.buildyourwildself.com]]-creates creatures to motivate writing. Playing guitar through an iPad!!!!	Creating some IWB resources for dual pen use-especially in Literacy and Numeracy areas. Planning on introducing etherpad (http://ietherpad.com) to staff as a collaborative way of motivating writing. Showing staff different ways of using Wordle to motivate and self assess writing. Plan to use zooburst in the classroom.
Doug Fitzsimons	The new Interactive projectors that are currently on the market are a good alternative to the IWBs that we have. Still able to run our IWB software and are cheaper. No screen needed, just a pen that interacts with the projector. Attended a workshop on the SOLO assessment system. It was being used school wide and linked to the whole school programme. Also saw it being promoted as a system for children to assess their own writing. This aws a good practical example that was being worked effectively with a range of open source software to motivate children in their writing.	Will be discussing this option with the BOT as we look to extend IWBs across the school. To ensure teachers are made aware of the open source software and to discuss the potential of this workshop with the literacy development team.
Rana	Jill Hammond's workshop on using ICT Tools for Raising Literacy Achievement. ietherpad.com for shared writing Wordle.net to highlight editing process in writing. buildyourwildself.com - fun inspirational activity to inspire writing 9 in 90mins - making digital stories with powerpoint, new photo activities Attended 2 activeboard presentations and got great ideas that I can use with my smartboard Attended Allanah King's presentation on bling4yourblog - got great ideas, especially on ways to get feedback for your posts.	Introduced buildyourwildself.com to the class. I've used the site plus the book Where the wild things are as inspiration for writing. Every child has created a wildself and has written about their wildself. We are intending to make a digital story using powerpoint and maybe using zooburst. Class has made a 5 frame digital story using powerpoint. The digital story is a popular resource in class. Child are now developing their own 5 frame digital story. Re-inspired to blog and are commenting in other Schools blogs. Made new IWB activites using interwrite gallery.

Reignier

Teacher	Something from Rotorua that had an impact on you.	What have you done in your school as a result of this impact?
Julia	Collecting, Using and Storing student voice Jo Flavell and Dee Ross - Using a variety of web 2.0 tools and others to record student voice - See Liz's link under 'Resources' or the ietherpad link Spike At School Eportfolios - A practical step by step guide to beginning eportfolios using spike Nick Rate's 10 Steps to introducing eportfolios -The things you have to think about before setting up eportfolios - the why part. Quite useful in terms of setting a purpose and deciding what you want in them.	Some teachers have begun to use such tools as wallwisher for collaborative brainstorming. We are investing in flip videos to compliment the easyspeaks for capturing and recording student voice quickly and easily. This is going to be a major focus across the school this year, especially in the area of assessment. We have started to use iether pad to collaboratively share what we have learnt - check the link to all our notes from Learning @school http://ietherpad.com/reignierictnotes All teachers have created an eportfolio for their Teaching as Inquiry through writing module. Teachers are blogging about professional readings and research, adding examples of ICT generated assessment and learning by teachers and students, learning journals http://www.slideshare.net/nickrate/eportfolios-ls-2011 Will use the bones of this presentation to produce a framework with staff on what our eportfolio will be used for and what elements we want in it. Another useful document for this will be the Ministry's guide to eportfolios.
Sheryl	Monitoring the growth of Key Competencies- Julia Atkin This was a very practical, easy and inspiring breakout that has already been well used as we have engaged the middle team students in discussion about their key competency development. The structure we used is briefly outlined. Weave the magic of storytelling- Lorraine Watchorn and Gail Cochrane What a treasure trove of exciting possibilities were exposed in this breakout.To have this available to you visit http://rellco.wikispaces.com Then click on resources on navigation bar and then digital story telling. These resources can be used across all year levels. Go for it and then share. Try wild yourself and piclit - they're fun and easy. Powerful Learning Talk for a world of possibility. - Joan Dalton and David Anderson. A great opportunity to consider reframing the conversations you have with students and the commands you give to create a more inclusive student directed learning environment. Consider using " We need to ....... because" instead of "I want you to..... " "In the next 5 minutes we are going to.... " instead of " You have 5 minutes to do what I want." " What do I need to explain more clearly?" instead of " What don't you understand?'	Developing Thinking as a key competency in the Middle Team. Ø Work as a whole team divided into randomly selected groups of 4. Ø Establish a common understanding of the term key competency. Ø Use anagram TRUMP to name key competencies. Ø Focus on thinking. Ø Identify people you think are great thinkers. Ø Identify the qualities you think make them great thinkers. What do they think, sound and feel like? Ø Share these qualities with the whole group. Ø Take this thinking back to classes to refine and take further. Ø As a group decide on the key qualities of a great thinker. Ø Design symbols that could represent the chosen qualities. Ø Focus on the chosen qualities and reflect on personal strengths and weaknesses. Record these in some form. Ø Fishbone diagram an area to focus on developing through deliberate teaching/learning activities. Ø The chosen qualities are to sit with the statement “I grow as a learner when I …” We intend to refine this process but so far we are delighted with the student responses which have been insightful and relevent. This wikispace and digital story telling resources have been shared with senior team leader to be used as ICT activities able to be integrated into literacy programmes. http://rellco.wikispaces.com It will take me a while to try these so I am looking forward to colleagues trying some of them and discovering uses, strengths and challenges. There have been discussions with colleagues about the impact of language resulting an an increased awareness of the language we use and where it would be helpful to re frame our language.
Crystal	Befunky.com http://bling4yrblog.blogspot.com http://bling4yrblog.blogspot.com/p/learning-at-school-2011.html http://www.interfacemagazine.co.nz/ Genius Cafe	Photo imaging site – give photos effects. Helps protect child identity. I have used it to create painting style photos of the class for our class bog. Allanah was very inspiring. She knew nothing about blogs and has self taught. She has put up a blog giving a step by step guide for an effective blog. All steps for creating a blog using E Blogger. Excellent examples of blogs for each primary level on this link. Not sure that spike@schools will have enough options for developing blogs like this – explore blog providers before choosing an option. I am then going to link this blog to my spike page. Teacher Blogs Tab – Class Blogs Tab – lists all open NZ class blogs. You can register your own blog for people to view. Idea to use this as a guided reading activity so that regular comments are being made on other blogs and you can invite people to view your blog. See ietherpad (above) for notes on how the cafe was set up and run. Present to the cluster and discuss whether this might be a viable idea for us.

Taradale Intermediate School

Teacher	Something from Rotorua that had an impact on you.	What have you done in your school as a result of this impact?
Leah	The value of e-reflections and their ability to empower learners. QR codes. Try www.jaxo-systems.com Robotics - found a fantastic resource to extend our kids using problem solving and competition.	Made the commitment to dedicating time in my music lessons to e-reflections using KNet. This allows the children to upload a video of their music performance so that they can share it at home with parents. Several discussions with TIS staff around the potential for these to motivate students, something different, as well as possibilities for use around the school. Ordered the resource. Still organising how to use it but it's here.
Robyn	iPad apps - attended a session called ipaddle (app harvest) where we saw and discussed a variety of educational apps and their potential. www.ipaddle.wikispaces.com QR codes David Kinane - The 5th Wall in the Classroom	Working our way through the list, investigating their potential for use in our school, especially with our special needs children. Several discussions with TIS staff around the potential for these to motivate students, something different, as well as possibilities for use around the school. The big question that came out of this is why are we still putting work on the walls in the classroom? Who sees this? Where is the real relevance of doing this in the digital age? When we as schools have access to wikis/blogs/learning caves/e-portfolios etc we should be making use of these.

Teacher	Something from Rotorua that had an impact on you.	What have you done in your school as a result of this impact?
Liz	Keynote Speaker Brett Lee: http://www.iness.com.au/ Brett’s message was refreshing in that rather than suggesting putting walls around the internet he encourages kids to use it by getting them to think about their behaviours in the “real world” and showing them that these behaviours are just as important when working/playing on line. He promoted teaching kids from an early age so that they know how to make the right choices. Kids need to understand that when they are interacting online that they are interacting with real people and behave in the same way as they would if they met them in the street. This is a little clipping from the L@S blog. Dispel myths that they are anonymous – they are not alone. Tell them that photos are not stored on their computer, if they have shared them online then they are stored in the ‘cloud’. Accessible by anyone. Ensure that they make their site private, limit personal details, and remember nothing is totally private. Teach them that what they post may affect them or their family in real life. Get them to mirror offline behaviour with online behaviour – if we wouldn’t in real life……….” Jane Nicholls. Neale Pitches demonstrated strategies for comprehension instruction and presented videos where two NZ classes were using digital material for shared reading and cooperative learning and having great success. www.csi-literacy.com An evidence based literacy resource for students ages 8-13+ See the Power Point on the resources page. The interactive content of the digital resources was very appealing and I really liked the quick access to word meanings and little explanatory videos. E.g. a very short video showing lava flow on an article about volcanoes. Great ideas offered at Inspire Me! Media. Loved the idea of the magic erasers for young children. Lots of great ideas in the breakout Collecting, Using and Storing Student Voice. See resources page. I am exploring a few of them including Jing. I think this has lots of potential for students making their own tutorials and storytelling. Some other good story making ideas yet to try were introduced in the workshop “Weave the Magic of Story Telling.” See Sheryl’s notes.	Will support teachers in implementing some of these ideas. I have investigated some of the ideas introduced in the breakout "Using and Storing Student Voice." I have experimented using Jing and hope to get some students making tutorials using this tool. I have looked at divshare and like the options for ebooks in different ways. I have been considering ways in which student voice can be used to support learning - not just as a presentation tool.
John	Adobe Illustrator Workshop. Very well presented workshop that introduced the basics of Adobe Illustrator. I now feel much more confident about using the programme with syudents and teachers however feel it is best suited to Secondary School because of the price.	I have been reinforcing the scope of the drawing tools within Microsoft Office placing special empahsis on the combination of freeform and curve tools combined with use of the edit points tool.
	I went to several workshops that involved the word "game". I was expecting fun and games but came away disappointed in both the delivery and the message.	I am trying to ensure that when working with others I try to clearly share the purpose of the excercise and to try to deliver it in an engaging and relevant way.
	I went to a workshop on setting up a school Radio Station. I think there are excellent possibilities for shared and authentic learning here. However I did pick up some points that need to be researched before committing to the equipment and going to air.	What are the rules about playing commercial tunes. Do you need a building permit to have the aerial installed. Where in the school is the best place to site the station.